For The Love of Travel

6 am brekky. Raining again this morning. The staff had gone fishing already and caught a huge catfish. Guess what’s for lunch/dinner??

Decided I wouldn’t go out on the river and hoped for the weather to improve in the afternoon. Spent some of the morning taking photos of a female and male kingfisher and some capuchin monkeys. 

Weather improved slightly, at least no rain and lesser windchill. Off we went for a couple of hours and saw lots of birds, but new critters for me were the Roadside Hawk, Wattled Jacana, King bird and a Giant Otter. 

Brekky at 6am, on the river at 7. It was drizzling, I had found an ’emergency plastic poncho’, in my suitcase which provided some cover over other clothes. We all put on multiple top and bottom clothing layers to insulate against the wind chill factor on the water…over the next 4 hours, saw a few new birds ( Southern Screamer, Great Kisadee and CoiCoi heron). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most importantly, a jaguar lazing on a sandy area next to the river.  We had a good 5 minutes watching him watching us before he loped off. We were ecstatic and felt sooo lucky to see her given the weather conditions (Jaguars prefer lazing in sunshine).

Back for a hearty lunch and rest for a couple of hours before we set off again at 14.30.

This time on the river we saw a family of capybara parents with bub. Gorgeous! 

Also a jabiru mother feeding her baby in a nest that was well over 20 metres from the ground. 

A very cold 3 hours on the river. Had a hot shower to warm myself up when we got back. The houseboat has aircon for the usual temperature experienced in the area but no heating. Brrr. The owner says he’s been here for the past 25 years and never experienced the climatic conditions of the past few days apparently. A lovely dinner again and Barron offered us some of his Brazilian rum, Cachaca, which went down well with some orange juice.

Left Araras Eco Lodge at 7am for the long drive to Caceres on the Rio Paraguai and the next adventure. On the road to the first town we were passing, Pocone, my driver Antonio, stopped a couple of times so I could take photos of various birds that I hadn’t seen before. Gorgeous (male) Roseate Spoonbill,  Capped Heron, Black Collared Hawk, Toucan and Wood Stork.

Then it started raining, initially showers, which turned to a heavy and sustained downpour. Met up with other guests, Liz, Bob and Barron (all English Exodus travellers) and guides Tony and Marcos, just outside of Pocone and after 4 more hours of bumpy unmade road travel, we got bogged about 1km from our destination. Antonio put down timber planks between the car and vegetation we could walk on, so that stopped us getting knee deep into the clay! Then brought a small boat around so we travelled on the river to the houseboat with our suitcases. My fellow travellers braved it out onto the water to see whatever fauna they could that late afternoon despite the rain, but I stayed on board. I didn’t have any waterproof gear, a bad omission on my part in packing. I really hadn’t anticipated cold and rainy conditions. They didn’t see much… A couple of cabybara’s and small birds. Dinner was delicious, locally caught fish and veges.